This being our 30th anniversary, we thought we’d dip back into the past and recap some of our previous performances, triumphs and tragedies, in a series of posts. And don’t forget our Chronology! It’s not as detailed, but it really shows the growth of ARTC over the years.
In 1998, ARTC experienced an important moment in its history as we unveiled the first in our Dean’s List series of Robert A. Heinlein adaptations, The Man Who Traveled in Elephants. And, boy, did we go all out. You can see all of the below photos at full size in our Flickr gallery.
First, if you’ve read the story, you may notice that it’s not quite like anything else that Heinlein wrote for the most part. In fact, Bill Ritch and Brad Linaweaver, who were instrumental in helping us get the rights from Virginia Heinlein to do this adaptation, described it as “Bradburyesque,” referring to legendary science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. Wouldn’t it be fun, we imagined, if we could get Ray Bradbury to introduce us?
So that happened. You can even hear the recording of the introduction on our studio production of the script.* Then, how about a bunch of guest stars. Like maybe Anthony Daniels. Or even Harlan Ellison, a legendary writer in his own right!
So that happened, too. And then we’d cap the whole thing off by making it a tribute to the Dean of American Science Fiction himself.
The presence of scream queen Brinke Stevens in our opening piece, A Real Babe (by Brad Linaweaver, adapted for audio by William Alan Ritch) was just the icing on the cake.
It was a performance for the ages. It was something nobody on the stage will ever forget.
*The Man Who Traveled in Elephants is currently available for sale exclusively at our live performances. We are hopeful to bring it back to general release in the near future through all of our digital and mail order distributors.